


A Blunt Axe

by Rainah (RainahFiclets)



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Ableism, F/M, Gen, Hunger Games Victors, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-08
Packaged: 2018-01-18 15:03:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1432819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainahFiclets/pseuds/Rainah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Annie crept up on him, but Johanna hits with all the subtlety of a blunt axe.</p><p>In celebration of everything Catching Fire, here are 2000+ words of Finnick and Johanna bonding. Set during the 73rd and 74th games.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Blunt Axe

**Author's Note:**

> Ok this is another one that got away from me. It was supposed to be half this length and I still feel like I want to write more. There's never enough Finnick and Johanna bonding.
> 
> Oh and a quick tw for ableism because Johanna's a fairly terrible person.

Johanna is the first one to notice, as he steps into the victor's control room after the kickoff of the 73rd Hunger Games. He's not surprised; she’s got the senses of a shark for when something's not as it usually is. She's also the closest thing he has to a best friend.

"Something's wrong." Her eyes flash briefly with concern before the wall slams back down behind them. "Did you kill someone on the way over here? Was it someone important?"

"Johanna," he says impatiently, because one of these days she's going to get them all killed.

"Please tell me you stuck a knife in the president."

"You're impossible." He takes the seat beside her anyways, the one reserved for Blight. "Did you stick one in your stylist?"

"Obviously not." She gestures down to the leaf patterned mini-dress she was wearing. It looked like it had once been a gown, but someone had hacked away at it with a dinner knife until their legs could move more freely. He wonders what she did with the knife.

"Stupid woman," Johanna mumbles, glancing around the room. She's still a freshly-made victor, but most learn where the painkillers are pretty fast. She grabs one of the bottles left out for the likes of Haymitch and tips it to her lips. "You could always stick a knife in her, if you were looking for a victim." 

When he doesn't say anything, she lowers the bottle and eyes him warily. "What happened, Finnick?" 

He can't tell her, not about this. Not in the control room at least, which is almost certainly bugged. He isn't sure he wants to tell her at all. _Annie. Her name is Annie._

He brushes her off, gives a partial answer. "Nothing. Just have to be somewhere tonight." The prospect was twice as horrifying now, to be sold into a twisted mockery of what should be his and Annie's to share. But it’s the only thing he can say that will get Johanna’s twisted sympathy rather than more prodding. She pats him on the arm (The farthest up she can reach) and says nothing more.

\- - - -

When it's over he stumbles up to Johanna’s room, smelling of champagne and expensive perfume. His wrists are killing him and knows Johanna will be awake.

She opens the door with “You need a shower, Odair.” 

“Good thing you have one then,” He reaches forward to kiss her cheek, but she dodges out of his way and gives him a shove.

“Shower, now.”

“Not you too,” He complains. “ ‘M sick of orders.” If he wasn’t so drunk he wouldn’t have said it. Johanna flushes angrily and turns away.

“Fine. Do whatever you want. I don’t care.”

He showers.

In the beginning, when he was sixteen and terrified, the showers had taken a lot longer. He had scrubbed his body raw more than once in a desperate attempt to kill the feeling of phantom fingers on his skin. Now he knows it’s useless.

As he leaves the bathroom, he says it.

“There’s a girl.”

\- - - -

_There’s a girl._

She looks up, trying to control the expression on her face.

She’s known Finnick for two years now, and she’s not a fool. There have been many _girls_ and more than a few _boys_ and just about everything else under the sun. He's slept with half the victors.

None of that, however, was able to produce that look in his eye. “Sit.”

She hands him one of the drinks she keeps in the room before downing her own. He’s already drunk and she intends to follow him. This was something of a ritual for them: whenever Finnick’s sold he doesn’t like to be alone, so he finds someone else’s room to sleep in. And Johanna is always awake, keeps liquor in her room at all times, and is always willing to stay up and bash the president. She doesn’t know if her room is bugged, but they either aren’t watching very clearly or just don’t care what she says.

“Bad one tonight?” Johanna asks as Finnick downs the cup of bitter liquid she hands him. His wrists are red and his lips are bruised, hair wet and fluffy. He looks young, like the boy she watched win the games eight years ago.

Finnick wipes his mouth with the back of one hand, making a face at the blood coming from a torn lip. “Bad one.” He curses, voice low and dark. “Not even useful information.”

Johanna thinks about offering to stab whoever it was, but a glance at his face stops her from taunting. Instead she just pours him another glass and makes room on the bed.

\- - - - -

After a few drinks and a bit of masochistic courage, she is able to ask, “What’s her name?”

When he showed up at her door Finnick had been tipsy. Now he was flat-out drunk. It didn’t do a thing to diminish his looks; He never lost the easy grace or handsome smiles. But she’s hoping he’s drunk enough to trust her with a name. 

No luck. “No, Johanna.”

“She’s not some capital whore, is she?” Johanna asks, because if she is Johanna might have to kill someone.

"No!” He rolled over on the bed, face-down in the pillows. “Johanna, just stop asking. The room’s bugged."

"No one’s listening, I’d have been arrested already.” She waves a hand dismissively. But she lets it go. ”Alright, how about this? Are. You. _Insane?_ A _girl?_ As if he doesn't have enough on you!” Finnick, who has an aging mentor and a little sister and so much emotional leverage. She wants to slap him. It was clear, out of the two of them, who was the glutton for pain.

"I know." He sits up, holding up his hands to placate her. "You don't understand."

"You’re right. I don't." She can’t stay sitting on the bed, so she gets up and starts pacing. “What’s worth that, Finnick? What girl could be worth that? It's not your job to save her too." Johanna bites off the last part because she can feel herself getting angry again and it’s better to just take another swig of alcohol.

"I already did," Finnick tells her, and in his face she gets it. _I already saved her._

"Oh no." Johanna’s hand covers her mouth. "Tell me your girlfriend is not _Annie Cresta._ Finnick!" The shock of it is taking a long time to sink in. Possibly that was the liquor. “Honestly, I thought you got enough of that here.”

She sees him go red and start to stammer. She finally made the great Finnick Odair blush.

Go figure.

"Save it, I won't believe you," She tells him. Annie Cresta? Why does he want Annie Cresta? She's off her rocker. Off the deep end. You can't even have a conversation with her.

 _You’re jealous._ A voice in her head whispers. Of Annie, who never killed anyone and still won her games. Who is allowed to go home and be mad, nothing more expected. Who has Finnick to pull her out of the darkness eleven months of the year, while Johanna has him only for the few weeks of carnage they have to watch together.

They don’t talk much more. Johanna has nothing else to say and Finnick is exhausted. He falls asleep in her bed that night, curled up with his arms around her and his face buried in the skin of her neck. 

_Is he pretending I’m her?_ She wonders how much, exactly, has gone on between Finnick and Annie. Finnick is damaged, however he tries to hide it, but Annie is too. _Maybe they’ll be good for each other,_ she thinks, and rolls her eyes before giving in to sleep and the safety of his arms.

\- - - - -

“Tributes don’t look so bad this year,” Gloss says, when Finnick shows up the next morning to the victor control centre. The room is spacious, filled with little computer stations for each district to mentor their tributes from. Not that all of the mentors show up. Haymitch was there, drinking heavily as he tried to keep his one remaining tribute alive. The morphlings have both tributes, which was unusual enough - and the bloodbath had been particularly brutal this year. Many victors had quickly been relieved of duty. 

Finnick has one tribute left as well, a girl who wields a short sword will skill but little ferocity. She is in an alliance with both from One and Two and a hulking boy from Ten, and likely as not one of them will be a winner. It’s unlikely to be his, but he has to try anyway. 

Johanna saunters into the room while he’s looking over sponsor gifts and seats herself on his lap. It’s not that she has to be here – her tributes were both taken out on the first day. She just likes to watch the victors trying to be cordial with each other. 

“Good morning,” he tells her. She’s so tiny that even when she’s sitting on his knees he can reach around her to the controls.

“What’s so good about it?” she shoots back, but leans back against his chest. It’s comfortable, something they’re both familiar with. “How much longer will these games be?”

“By my estimate, approximately another week,” comes a voice from the District Three station. “Considering an estimated death rate of one tribute per-“

“No one cares Beetee,” Johanna tossed over her shoulder.

“Play nice,” Finnick tells her, because really she does nothing for group harmony. But maybe it’s better for them to not bottle things up. She’s great for catharsis.

“You look terrible.” Cashmere looks Johanna up and down before her eyes trail over Finnick. He’s as hungover and wrecked as Johanna is (more so, because Johanna didn’t spend the evening in a capitol penthouse) but he’s much better at hiding it. Johanna just doesn’t care. “How late were you out?” Cashmere asks scornfully.

“How late were _you_ ,” Johanna shoots back, and Cashmere flushes. Finnick wraps his arm around Johanna because while that’s pushing a boundary he really doesn’t want to see anyone sent to the medical ward today.

“Breathe.”

“Shut up Fishboy I’m not going to stab her.” But he feels her relax against him. 

He hears something else she says though, right as he turns back to the controls. It’s low and quiet.

“I hate this.” Johanna whispers, when there’s no one but Finnick close enough to hear.

\- - - - - 

 

A week later, they find themselves on the roof while the hunger games rage on. It’s a small bit of peace in the chaos.

“Does she know?” Johanna asks him, tilting her face up towards the sun. Twelve floors below them the citizens of the capital scurried around like colourful ants, but up by the sky the world seemed to stand still.

“Annie?” Finnick glanced over. 

“Does she know about Snow? And, well,” She gestures to him, the expanses of silky gold skin exposed. Even when he doesn't have to, Finnick never seems to wear much clothing.

“She knows enough.” He looks away, down at the scurrying ants of the capitol. “She knows it’s not… what I would have been doing, if I had the choice.” But he hasn’t told her the details, that much is clear. “Snow hasn’t said anything to her.”

That didn’t mean she’s safe. “And if he does?”

“I’ll stop it.” 

\- - - - -

 

He keeps his word. The next games, Snow sends him out nearly as often as he used to. Twice as much as last year. 

But Annie stays in District Four. 

Johanna isn’t stupid, she knows what Finnick’s doing. He’s taking her place. Part of her hates him for it, even as she stops throwing taunts his way and starts telling him he needs to sleep. His tributes die early, and Finnick hardly seem to notice. He’s lost in a world of decadence and secrets, of lies and false intimacy. He comes to her room later now, and stays until dawn. 

One night they’re together, just holding each other, and he whispers against her skin, “I can’t do this anymore.”

“You have to,” Johanna tells him, because it’s what he needs to hear. It feels wrong to say it, but what would he do if she died? Toss himself off some capital person’s gilded balcony, probably. “Do it for her. It’s not flowers, but…” 

Finnick nods, pulls her closer, until she’s pressed right against his skin. Knowing she’s right doesn’t make it any easier for him to face.

But when Haymitch tears himself away from the Star-Crossed Lovers of District Twelve for a moment and whispers to her, “There’s a plan going into motion. It's dangerous, but it's the best chance we've got.” She gives him a slow nod of acceptance.

“I’m in.”


End file.
